Many of us Gen Zers know of the app called TikTok. A big trend among prominent influencers on the app is making point-of-view videos (POVs), where they act out a fictional scenario, and those who are watching can view it like they would view a television snippet or movie scene. 

Although this is inherently fine and not damaging, there are those who take it to an extreme. Some of the more-heinous videos include acting as serial killers, being in abusive relationships and even being killed or involved in miscellaneous crimes. 

Acting as a whole isn’t harmful to those who know it is acting. While viewers can see that it is a POV video, parents are unknowingly letting their young children indulge in media that is far too sensitive for their developing minds to handle. 

Not to act like an older sibling or anything, but if my younger self or younger sibling was watching any of these, I would be majorly disturbed.

Much of what teenagers do can often be in spite of authority or of what they have already heard before, but situations as graphic as these are not to be taken lightly. The teenagers making these videos know what they are doing. Their shareable clips are always being monetized. So while people are watching them do this, they are making money at the expense of children. 

Promoting physical violence is not cute, no matter how etched the boy’s jawline may be or how shimmery his chain is. It is also not quirky for a girl to be covered in blood after a perceived black eye from a fictional spouse or lover either. Thousands of people go through these experiences, and while Hollywood does the same sort of exploitation, there are voluntary rating systems for those who choose to see it. Furthermore, those who choose to see it are often adults or minors accompanied by adults. Children are involuntarily being exposed to this digital content and are conditioned to believe that it is OK because the person filming it is physically attractive. 

Another type of POV is a sort of throwback genre, where an influencer portrays a past period of time and often a historical figure. While many of these can be informative, such as hate crime documentation (i.e. homophobia and racism), the treatment of these videos should remain the same. Posting videos such as these could sensationalize the death of real people. This could be damaging to the families of that victim or those related to said incidents.

Children may know that murder is 100% not okay. They may know that abuse sounds bad, but do they even know what abuse is? Should they know what abuse is? Children are on TikTok at a rate that is always growing, and with its growing influence, TikTok creators should be held responsible for the effects that their content may have on the future leaders and teachers of society.